Sunday, December 06, 2009

Questions Please.

Here’s some carry-over questions for the next video clip

Sparks: Has the Cormac arc definitively ended, or is there the possibility that we'll get to see what happens to the polity *after* the events of Line War? We know *something* of the polity must survive or Orlandine's story would have had less promise (and probably more dispersal of bodily fluids and other important bits).Inchy: Do you have someone that you bounce your ideas off regarding future tech? The reason I ask is that, like most of my favourite sci-fi authors, the tech employed in your works is, to me anyway, extremely plausible, almost as if its on the cusp of what we can currently achieve. Is this deliberate?

Michael: How did you make your first break into publishing? Its one of those questions that every aspiring Neal Asher wannabe has to ask.JMC: My question is, how do you come up with the new technologies in your books and the unique ecologies of the planets you create? It seems quite daunting, either that or I am of limited imaginative scope.

Sparks: Actually, "where do you start" is an interesting question in itself - do you start with the story by having an actual storyline in mind and building the environment around that; or do you build the environment in your mind first and see what storyline emerges naturally?

Let’s have some more questions in the comments here. And try to make them specific. A vague question will get a vague answer.

8 comments:

there's some spectacular deaths in your books. it's stuff that stick with me especially in the Skinner and to an extent the pulping of Cormac.wondering if there are any standouts that you've replayed in your head from other authors? how about from your own books?

(side note: one that gets me is the Iain Banks dont fuck with the culture death taken right from an Itchy and Scratchy cartoon)

One scene springs to mind that isn't a death: the Skinner's head sprouting legs and making its escape from Captain Ambel's cabin. It was later pointed out to me as very like the scene in the remake of The Thing, when a guy's head sprouts legs and scuttles off.

Would you actually want to live within one of the realities depicted in your books?

To be more precise, among all science fiction stories you've ever read, is there a certain fictional setting that you would like to see come true? For example, Iain Banks' Culture, would you want to be part of it? In other words, which depiction of physics, culture and technology appearing in science fiction literature would you choose to live in?

Further, and maybe more interesting, can you name a prospective future that you'd personally call dystopian with respect to your liking?

My question is specifically aimed at far future scenarios where we, or something that originated from Sol, survived. I assume nobody would want to live on a post-apocalyptic, end time, low-tech Earth.

Do you ever worry yourself with the level of violence you're capable of dreaming up? Ever get that moment where a character just "gets away from you" and does something utterly savage and you're not entirely sure where that come from?